The Seat Altea. Yippee. If you think I’m being sarcastic, you couldn’tbe more wrong. OK, a car that’s mid-way between a regular hatchback and a...

1st May 2004

What we say:

The Altea is a reasonably good looking, practical MPV. But it's getting on a bit now

What is it?

Result of putting a Leon on the rack and making it taller. Stretch it lengthways too and you get the Altea XL. Make it chunkier and you get the now-departed Freetrack 4. Keep up. It’s a Golf SV rival which is OK, but we’re not really sure why you would buy one. Decent boot, decent engines, but just get a normal hatch, OK? And it’s starting to feel its considerable years now, too.

Driving

The longer and higher you build a car, the soggier its handling becomes, so sure enough the Altea and XL aren’t as agile as the Leon. But they aren’t total misery either, provided you don’t mind a bit of body roll. They steer accurately and tell you what’s going on.

The 1.6 petrol is a bit of a damp squib. For diesel buyers, the vast majority, there are the usual Seat range of effective chuggers.

On the inside

In true VW Group style you get an excellent driving position, adjustable for anyone, and firm spine-friendly seats. Seat is good at doing ride comfort too.

All Alteas have sliding reclining rear seats and bags of space. It’s what they are invented for. There are heaps of mini storage spaces too, with some models including ceiling consoles.

The dash has some hard plastics, just to provide some differentiation between Seats and the more expensive VWs. But the fundamentals feel reassuringly sound.

Owning

The diesels are pretty thrifty. Depreciation, servicing and so on are all on par for the class: compare them with a Ford C-max and you’ll get the idea.

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